Z winds down to a standstill

I’ve just about caught up on the washing. Just three hand towels and a shirt, which don’t make up a full load, of course, to go. However, since some linen napkins and tablecloths were involved, I’m afraid ironing will follow. Maybe it’ll give me something to do when the tennis finals are on. A couple of beds have still to be made, but otherwise I’ve even done the housework, which means I won’t have much of it to do for weeks. Although we’re planning to do some turning out. That is, Russell is in the process of turning out his Room of Mystery (the main mystery is how to get in there, since it is a room with a door but no visible means of opening it), which means he’s spread lots of stuff all over the dining table and floor, but it’s highly unlikely he’ll ever get around to sorting it out. So, when we need the big dining room again, he’ll have to shove everything back again and it’ll be more disordered than before. Unless I insist on *helping*, of course.

I’m still thinking about dreams – you know, there are still a couple of dreams I remember from childhood, and I only realised one of them was a dream years later, when it dawned on my that what I’d seen in it was impossible. And by years, I mean several decades. I’m not the quickest thinker, have to admit. The other one, I did know was my imagination, since it involved a family of bears taking up residence in the kitchen and me levitating up the stairs. Even I couldn’t rationalise that.

After reading Tim’s latest post, it occurred to me that I haven’t attempted The Times crossword for several weeks, so I had a go this afternoon, while watching the tennis. I’ve solved six clues so far, which is about as far as I’m likely to get for the moment. Hopeless. It takes me days to get back into the swing of things. My father was a great crossword solver, one of the sort of people who’d solve the whole thing in minutes. I still have some books of puzzles that he did some of and passed them on to me, so my childish writing is in them too. I normally write the answers in lower case, because he did, and I see that I tried to imitate his style of lettering too.

I haven’t been out of the house and garden all day today and it’s been rather nice. I’ve got out of the way of just pottering around.